EnCrypted Episode 12: 'The Ash Tree' by M.R. James

 


Montague Rhodes James' name is so synonymous with the ghost story that it is perhaps surprising we should have waited for our twelfth episode for one of his stories. Perhaps his tales are so well-known and widely adapted - this particular one most memorably as part of the BBC's Ghost Stories for Christmas - that there was less urgency. Nevertheless, it would be remiss for any series of classic horror and supernatural short stories to neglect him.

One wonders, were he alive today, whether M.R. James would have gravitated towards podcasting himself. Many of  short stories were originally intended as Christmas entertainments, designed to be read aloud to friends, although they were compiled and published to enormous success. Indeed, the first of these collections, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (containing The Ash Tree), was (and is) considered a landmark in supernatural fiction.

The Ash Tree is archetypal James, possessing the triptych of elements we usually find in his stories: a quintessentially English setting (in this case, a stately home in Suffolk), an historic object (often an antique, here the titular tree), and the incurrence of a wrath from beyond the grave...

I hope you enjoy this telling of The Ash Tree and continue to enjoy the podcast.

Yours,

Jasper 

******

About the episode:

"The Ash Tree" by M.R. James was first collected in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (Edward Arnold, 1904).

Theme music: 

The Black Waltz by Scott Buckley | www.scottbuckley.com.au Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/  

Incidental music: 

Pagan Cross by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com (https://www.silvermansound.com/free-music/pagan-cross) (Used with the following licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

This House by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4525-this-house
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Sound effect attributions: 

https://freesound.org/people/juskiddink/sounds/65795/*

https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/352513/*

https://freesound.org/people/straget/sounds/419504/*

https://freesound.org/people/straget/sounds/419504/*

https://freesound.org/people/tosha73/sounds/530920/*

https://freesound.org/people/j_o_j/sounds/363016/*

https://freesound.org/people/Keith%20Selmes/sounds/397357/*

*All used with the following licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

All other sound effects sourced at Freesound.org

The recording was created using Audacity and BandLab. Podcast hosted by Anchor.

COMING SOON: a special EnCrypted episode - "An Edwardian EVIL DEAD II"

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